Monday, June 9, 2008

I've been tagged. This is probably the only context in which I will concede to liking chain-letters and go on to honour them. Up until now I had no idea that Sujatha over at fluff 'n' stuff even knew of my existence but she has me listed right next to Usha from agelessbonding. Usha is a veteran of the blogging world--she started blogging in 2003 and her site meter indicates she gets 267 visits, on average, per day. Having blogged only since January of this year, I assume that my readership doubles on the days my husband wanders over lazily from his haunts to check out my latest entry. So now is probably a good time to share this thought: that the 'six degrees of separation' rule does not apply to the blogging world. Through blogs, people can probably be connected to each other in no more than three degrees of separation.

Now onto the business-at-hand.

These are the rules:

Pick up the nearest book.Open to page 123.Find the fifth sentence.Post the next 3 sentences.Tag 5 people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

"...When the Muslim moved into Tailor's Alley and started a milk bar, I said to the people there, 'In my life this has always been a Hindu alley. Tomorrow this Muslim will be selling your children milk with cow bones ground in.'" He realized he was merely boasting and brought the conversation back on track.

Now for the more difficult part--the tagging. The introductory narrative next to the chosen blogger is not essential; it is just my personal touch as a tribute to those chosen.

Anonandon (while being as opinionated as the rest of us, she manages, better than most of us, to carve time for Bellinis or rock concerts or both--much to the chagrin of some Y chromosomes. But that is another story).

Asal thamizh penn (if she rejects being tagged and chooses instead to write about how annoying the game is, she will at least stamp it with her ATP-brand comic style. But more importantly, she will show me all the respect my Tamilness deserves and will refer to me only as an anonymized 'M').

12 comments:

Hey M, Thanks for all those nice words. Blogging for close to 5 years does not need any special talent courage to post random nonsense without any inhibition about displaying one's limited abilities.But there is so much sweetness around the world that all these kind readers indulge me and even favour me with their opinions and PoVs on many posts.Your readership just tripled as I intend to check this space everytime I am on a blog surf.Happy blogging.

Thank you so much, Malathi, for your kind words about my blog and taste in Russian food. I'm a bit shy to tag anyone myself, but I'll be looking forward to reading more of your posts about stories and novels... particularly the Russian ones!

M, I admit that I don't like this game. But because you are nice, I make an exception for you. The closest book I could lay my hands on was - Madras Rediscovered, by S Muthiah. Since I am not very good with numbers, I checked page 93 as opposed to 123. It says:You might like The Hindu or you may not, but nobody interested in the public word can ignore it.Of course, Muthiah said that in 1981, but I am sure it still holds. One hopes.

You are so right. Even on my personal level, I escape easily into the world of words and ideas created by others rather to pen my own (despite wanting to do it). I suspect that if I was isolated somewhere with no books to attract and distract me (an island, a prison-cell) I may finally, compulsively turn to creating my own narratives, recording my own stories.

Thanks, Sujatha. I will write about Sharma's book--maybe in a week or so.

Asal thamizh penn, how did I miss your visit yesterday? We must have been on at around the same time. Oh, I've always loved 'The Hindu', although it seems to be going through some identity crisis of late. Even now though, it is a 100 times better than that rag 'TOI.'

True.After all its just a wedding and a 2 day tamasha after which life goes back to where it was. :-)Delightful reading your posts after a while. And your audience is obviously more than doubling everyday.

tagged: This is cheating a bit because its pg121 but more interesting than pg123.

Then, everyone turns to me, as though I'm going to deliver some kind of pronouncement. I get these voices in my head of what the Mother is supposed to say- maybe something about how it will all work out. My own mother would say something definite, final.